


J + J

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU where AoS seasons 4-5 never happened, Action/Adventure, Crossover, Female Friendship, Gen, Hero Worship, cause they are perfect and deserve better than their shows gave them, faves meeting!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 12:16:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15142892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Somewhere in Yorkshire they are waiting for a SHIELD expert.





	J + J

She doesn’t like leaving the specimen alone for too long, even if it’s dead. 

She doesn’t appreciate being taken from her London base and asked to come to the middle of the Yorkshire moors but she guesses the middle of these moors are a good place to stash the body of a creepy-looking alien none of her colleagues had ever seen before.

As for the consultant - it’s been awhile since Martha has met a celebrity.

There’s a low rank guard with her, nervous, cold in this weather.

“Why would _she_ be interested in coming here?”

“Something about the colour of the alien.”

“The col- what?”

She’s about to reply but the approaching helicopter drowns any sound.

Here comes the expert.

The woman appears with signs of recent battle: the dark eye, the bruises, and one arm in a sling. She looks different in person, not like the images of her - flying, splitting streets into two, facing down hundreds of enemies - but then again people always do. An Asian woman of around thirty, she isn’t wearing the distinctive SHIELD uniform - that’s a bit surprising, Martha thinks, she has had dealings with SHIELD before, and they always show up in either uniform or dark, tailored suits, expensive enough to put Savile Row to shame. Not jeans and a leather jacket, that’s for sure. Perhaps the woman’s peculiar status in the organization gives her some freedom.

Martha saw what happened on the news, like everybody else, so she isn’t shocked by the recent wounds on her. UNIT had put in the request the morning after the battle, but of course no one had expected “Quake” to be the expert SHIELD was going to send. 

Martha too was surprised to have been called in for this one; they always wanted her for alien encounters, but not if they only had a body. She does better with living things. She hopes.

“Agent Johnson,” she greets the woman once they are far enough from the helicopter.

“Miss Jones. Or do you prefer Agent Jones? I didn’t know-”

“I prefer Miss Jones, if you don’t mind,” Martha replies. 

Daisy Johnson looks around with a smirk, leaning towards Martha with a conspiratorial glint in the eye.

“What? You don’t like working for UNIT?”

It seems an odd question, given the circumstances.

“You like working for SHIELD?”

“Some days,” the other woman replies, strangely cheerful.

They make their way through the moors with some difficulty. Agent Johnson keeps fidgeting with her sling, putting it in place. Martha watches her.

“Looks serious,” she says.

“You should know, you’re the doctor.”

A subtle way of letting her know that she has done the research.

“It was pretty spectacular,” Martha points out, because she has also been following Quake’s career. 

“Oh, I’ve had worse days,” Daisy Johnson replies.

No need to be modest, Martha thinks, the British were after all the ones asking for help on this mission.

Martha leans towards her, like the SHIELD agent did moments ago.

“Come on, I saw the news, no need to be modest. They are calling it the Second Battle of New York.”

“Really? That’s original. Also a bit offensive, don’t you think? They should be able to come up with something new. But, I have a friend who died in the First one, so.”

That wrong-foots Martha, especially give the light tone with which is said. 

“I’m sorry.”

Daisy Johnson shrugs and flashes a brief smile.

“It’s okay, he’s fine now, he got better.”

Martha can’t help the aside: “We must have the same taste in friends.”

There’s a gust of cold wind and suddenly Daisy Johnson looks very annoyed, like bad weather is somehow more of a problem than the hordes of murderous creatures she fought not 48 hours ago. Martha smiles a bit at the thought. Tish would probably tell her to stop being a dork - though Tish is the one who follows the Unofficial Quake Sightings Instagram account.

“Why the colour?” Martha asks, her brain back on the mission.

“What?”

“It’s the first thing SHIELD asked, the colour of the alien. Why?”

Daisy Johnson brushes the hair off her face a moment, and Martha can see a smile: a sharp, tired, almost menacing smile.

“Because if the color was blue then I had to come see it with my own eyes.”

 

**&**

Martha hates this place. Of all the UNIT bases this is the one she always hopes she doesn’t have to visit whenever the inevitable call comes (she is officially part time, or whichever the equivalent of part time is in a secret organization dedicated to monitoring alien and otherwise bizarre ongoings in the planet). When her beeper goes off it might be one of her patients, or it might be a different kind of emergency - and she always hopes it’s not the Yorkshire base.

It was not the geographical situation, though the damp alone can put you in a foul mood before you even set foot in the place. The base was built from UNIT’s worst nightmares. UNIT should be about hope, not paranoia.

While they go through cold, grey hallways Martha reviews the case out loud, even though Director Johnson has already read the file. Fishermen found the corpse off the coast of Norfolk three days ago. No vital signs. Local authorities said they’d have thought it was a prank, except so many strange things have happened in this country in recent memory… Martha barely had time to look at the body before they sent her out into the wind to greet their American friend. The biology is simply incredible - and she’s not lacking experience on these matters, she’s seen pharmaceutical companies that would use murderous alien insects in their drug trials. Martha Jones doesn’t throw the word “incredible” around.

“So how does being a consultant for SHIELD works?” Martha asks, offering a warm mug of tea to Daisy, since she saw her react so badly to the chill.

The other woman grimaces when she tastes is.

“Oh, God, I _really am_ in England,” she complains, and then proceeds to answer Martha’s question. “I have a deal with them: I was SHIELD but I walked out some time ago. Things changed and I didn’t want to be part of that team anymore. But I still wanted to help out so… I’m _with SHIELD_ , I’m just not SHIELD.”

“I’m not fulltime UNIT either,” Martha says. “I’m a- I’m a Doctor.”

“I know. How’s the day job?”

She returns the American’s teasing chuckle. It is weird talking to someone from the outside, someone who is not UNIT, whose life seems just as strange, but completely divorced from this one.

“Thanks for the tea, it helped,” Johnson says. “Can we go see your alien?”

Martha blushes a bit, she didn’t mean to be chatting when they’re supposed to be on the clock, it’s just she still gets excited - knowing people like Daisy Johnson, rubbing elbows with the once mighty SHIELD.

“Of course.”

She leads her to the main lab, her assistants still in their positions as if they haven’t moved since Martha left the room half an hour ago.

“I was going to start prepping for the autopsy when you arrived,” she tells the SHIELD ambassador.

The woman has her eyes fixed on the little of the the body visible through the glass and under the white lab sheet.

“Yep, that’s definitely a Kree,” Daisy Johnson says.

“What’s a Kree?” Martha asks, looking it up in her tablet. There’s nothing in UNIT’s database with that name, and she has never encountered a species like this herself, in her travels.

“It’s a bad guy, a very bad guy,” the agent non-explains. “And they really don’t like Inhumans.”

She nods - on the other hand Martha knows all about Inhumans, since before they knew about Quake. As both a doctor and an expert on all matters alien and odd Martha was on speed-dial when the UK’s population started experimenting Terragenesis. Of course they didn’t have that word back then, not until SHIELD graciously decided to share their data with the rest of the world. Martha had to deal with a lot of confused people, people in danger of hurting themselves and others. In an ironic turn of events it was Inhumans what had brought Martha back to working closely with UNIT, after a couple of years’ hiatus. 

Agent Johnson’s quip wasn’t wrong: Martha is still ambivalent about UNIT, most days. But she thinks that’s a good thing. There were some tough times, but she’s more inclined to help since Kate Stewart’s new leadership brought on some changes to the organization. They let Martha keep her independence now, so she doesn’t have to choose between being a doctor and… well, and all this weird stuff.

“Doctor Jones?” one of the lab techs says weakily.

“Yes?”

The lab assistant doesn’t have to spell it out for her.

The beeping does.

“But that’s not possible,” Martha says. “I checked the vitals myself.”

“What’s happening?” Daisy asks.

A glass wall separates them from the body, and yet Martha cannot help feeling dangerously exposed to it. They don’t know what it is, they don’t know that is dangerous - SHIELD seems to think so - but as the beeping of the machine speeds up Martha’s radar for danger (a bit rusty, but tempered in many a battle back in the day) starts ringing in her ears as well.

Something stirring on the operation table.

“It’s alive?” Daisy says and slowly and wordlessly starts walking towards it, or in front of everybody, until Martha realizes she’s putting her body between them and the creature. Her eyes focused on the other room, Martha is not sure she’s conscious that’s what she’s doing.

“But it was— “

“ _Sleeping_ ,” Daisy finishes for her.

The world gets engulfed in a dull darkness for a moment, like during an eclipse. Then Martha realizes there’s a shadow and she’s directly under it. The shadow of a big, big body.

“It’s huge,” Martha says, because it didn’t look that massive lying on a gurney. “It’s bigger than a Judoon.”

“What’s a Judoon?” Daisy asks.

 

**&**

Daisy Johnson basically grabs everybody out of the room door. At first Martha thinks it’s an American thing, some Alpha stuff, this taking care of business so rudely, all in Quake mode, but then she realizes she is just scared for them.

“I didn’t know this was a combat op,” Johnson says as she is ushering lab techs out of there. “I wouldn’t have come on my own - not with the arm like this.”

She curses under her breath.

“This wasn’t supposed to be a combat— ”

Daisy is looking at the alien with something beyond horror - a special kind of apprehension. Martha has seen that expression before, and she doesn’t like it.

She turns to Martha, balling her hands into fists the best she can.

“You need to evacuate everybody, now. There needs to be a full lockdown, in case I can’t contain it. I just have to contain it.”

She mutters the last part, like she is 

“It doesn’t seem like a one-person job,” Martha points out. “Especially not a one-injured-person job.”

Daisy smiles. “Then it’s a good thing we’re _two_ people.”

Martha can’t help but return the smile openly, a familiar rush in her veins.

The creature is still stumbling, bumping into trays and walls. Martha figures it’s blind, at least for the moment. It gives her a window to walk around it and get to Angela, one of the younger lab assistants, who remains tucked under the table.

“Come on, Angela,” she coaxes, gritting her teeth. “Angela, for f— “

She has to crawl there herself and then drag Angela out of the door.

She could escape as well but instead, without thinking, she goes back into the lab, wanting to know if she can help an international-fame superhero. She feels something big and cold behind her and she’s sure that, for all the times she’s cheated dead, now she’s going to get it. Definitely. Here. On the Yorkshire moors. Yuck.

Then something peculiar happens. It’s like she loses footing. No, like the floor slips from underneath her for a moment. And then a gust of air from nowhere, and a crash behind her, she turns around just in time to catch the image of the Kree flown across the room, connecting with the further wall in a loud, hard hit. 

And then Martha turns around to see Agent Johnson lowering her hand and doubling in pain.

 

**&**

She’s surprised that her hands don’t tremble. Thank God for muscle memory, right? Because it’s been a while since Martha has been in one of these dramatic life-or-death situations. She doesn’t shake as she bandages Agent Johnson’s hands but her arms ache from having dragged her unconscious body out of the lab, just in time to lock the door behind them. She doesn’t know for how long the hit the Kree took will keep it down. Or how long the lab doors will hold.

She tries not to think about that, and focuses on tending to Daisy’s injuries. Martha feels a bit lonely with the only other human (kind of) inside the building out cold like this.

“Where are we?” asks the other woman, even as her eyes fight to open.

“Cupboard? I think.”

She keeps a low voice, listening for noises outside. This base is labyrinthic but not too big, the alien could catch up with them at any point.

“What happened?” Daisy asks.

“You passed out,” Martha points out. “After saving my life.”

She should probably thank her extensively for that later, but they are pressed for time so Martha gives the injured woman a warm smile as she resumes bandaging her arm. She can’t do much for the wound do - as it seems it’s internal. Martha is not sure what is going on with that - she saw it, the woman passed out _from pain_ \- but superheroes, go figure. 

“You’ve pretty much returned the favor, Miss Jones,” the American tells her, even through a haze of pain. 

Martha can do little about that last part.

“I brought us here because it’s not far from the control room,” she explains. “I can kill the lights. That will give us a slight advantage. I know the blueprints to this building by heart.”

Daisy stands up, using Martha’s shoulder for balance, and giving her an amused shake of her head.

“Our research was right: _you are_ brilliant.”

She feels her cheeks heat up, but there’s no time for either compliments or getting embarrassed about them.

“You’re the one who vibrated the alien’s arse across the room,” she points out.

“It’s kinda my fault that we’re in this situation in the first place,” Daisy says.

“What do you mean?”

Again the American agent looks Martha straight in the eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Jones, it’s me.”

“You? How?”

“It’s awake because of me, the proximity. I think it’s a Hunter, it came to Earth for me.”

“You have a healthy ego,” Martha comments. A she knows a thing or two about people with egos.

“I don’t mean _me_ specifically, I mean Inhumans. Any Inhuman would have triggered it.”

Martha helps her to her feet. This is not the time to be assigning blame here. Or thinking how calling in SHIELD’s expert was the worst possible decision. No, it’s not the time for that. It’s the time to run from the scary blue monster.

“You can call me Martha,” she tells Daisy.

“Yeah, but _Miss Jones_ is way cooler.”

“We could use it though,” Martha realizes.

“What?”

“If it’s after you-”

“We can use me as bait,” Daisy adds. Then she frowns with her whole face. “I’m not sure I like how UNIT thinks.”

Martha helps her up.

“We just need to contain it,” Daisy says anyway, going along. Sort of.

“We need somewhere that can hold,” Martha says, mentally revising the base’s blueprints.

“At least until SHIELD comes.”

She gives Daisy an inquiring look. 

“I sent them a message as soon as I was sure it was a Kree,” she replies, looking straight at her, even though she had to admit that was a bit underhanded of her.

There will be time for inter-agency brawling later, she figures, cooperation first, getting out alive first. No. First is making sure that monster is taken care of.

“We have somewhere,” Martha says. “A room.”

“A room?”

“It could contain the Kree. It’s for unkillable creatures, it just freezes them. UNIT built it for-”

“ _A Time Lord_?” Daisy finishes for her.

Martha arches an eyebrow, a bit annoyed, truly, at feeling at such disadvantage. 

“You have done your homework.”

“This is probably not the best moment to tell you that the firewall to UNIT’s servers really sucks.”

“It was for a bad Time Lord,” Martha feels the need to specify, out of loyalty. “Not-”

“You can tell me all about that later,” the other woman. “Come on, I need to go face my mortal enemy and you have to save the day.”

 

**&**

Martha hadn’t run like this in _years_. There have been missions of course, but nothing like the life she used to lead. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss it sometimes. But she made her choice. And anyway she still gets herself into enough mad situations (like today) without the Doctor’s help, thank you very much.

When she reaches the control room that familiar ache in her chest lingers for a moment. She concentrates on killing the lights first.

“We just need to contain it, just contain it,” she repeats as she searches for the controls to the Special Room (UNIT did not work long hours for that name). “Just that. And Martha, you are now talking to yourself.”

“Not exactly,” comes Daisy’s voice right into her ear.

“This system is great,” she exclaims, in awe of SHIELD’s gadget.

“I always bring a spare,” Daisy tells her. “I think it’s SHIELD’s patent but you can keep it afterwards.”

She sounds a little breathless now. Walking the dark hallways, and in pain, was taking its toll.

“If we survive this,” Martha says, gloomily.

“If we survive this we’ll— “

The line goes silent. It’s not cut, it’s… Daisy has stopped talking.

“Agent Johnson? _Daisy_?”

“I think I can hear it,” she whispers in response.

Martha’s first thought is _No!_ but this was what they wanted.

It’s just that the idea of Daisy facing that blue thing on her own. in the darkness. Being chased. She shakes it off. Come on, _save the day_ , she said. She focused on the plan.

“Do you remember how to get to the room from there?” she asks Daisy.

“I think so.”

Barely a whisper.

“Are you ready to close the door when I give the signal?” she asks Martha.

She draws her hands over the console, desperate to find the right button.

“Eh… I think so…”

Then all Martha hears is feet on the ground, running.

The echoes of her running.

Then something else echoing, at more distance.

And Daisy panting.

_Here I go again_ , Martha thinks.

 

**&**

She still looks cold.

Daisy does.

She’s regarding the Yorkshire landscape with skepticism.

But at least Martha managed to send the helicopter back for supplies, while they wait for SHIELD to come pick up their alien. The specimen. UNIT could try to play some international diplomacy here but honest? Martha is going to be glad when there’s an ocean between her and that blue monster.

“Mmm, god,” Daisy moans, grease all over her mouth. “These chips _are_ amazing.”

“They’re so bad for you,” Martha points out.

“Who cares, you’re not my doctor,” the other woman replies. “You kind of were, for a moment there… but nevermind, let’s live a little.”

Martha agrees they _both_ deserve a treat and steals a chip from Daisy’s huge paper cone. 

The American looks at her, impressed by the maneuver.

And it seems like the painkillers are working all right.

“So SHIELD knows about the Doctor,” Martha comments, trying to sound casual.

Daisy licks the tips of her fingers before answering.

“Of course it does. It knows about what happened to you years ago, Harold Saxon and all that. The Year The Never Was.”

“ _How_?”

“Torchwood’s servers are not that great either,” Daisy tells her. “We have a very thick file on you. Why do you think I wanted to come here personally?”

“I thought it was…”

A smirk.

A feeling of deja-vu.

Martha doesn’t ask details. She’s still worried about the Doctor being on one of SHIELD’s spooky lists.

“Don’t worry,” Daisy adds, like she could sense it. “SHIELD knows about the Doctor but Director Fury classified him as a friendly ages ago. I think the Doctor invited him to tea and crumpets once.”

“That sounds like him.”

“Yeah, what are crumpets by the way?”

Martha chuckles.

Daisy reminds her a bit of the Doctor, but Martha doesn’t tell her this; she couldn’t understand, without meeting him face to face.

Daisy looks at her, looking very solemn all of the sudden.

“You might not entirely like working for UNIT, but… it’s better for having you in it.”

Martha lifts her chin, agreeing.

“Yes, it is.”

All right, she deserves _another_ chip.


End file.
